A third argument for religion’s special place is anthropological: Human beings are naturally inclined toward religion. We are driven to relate our understanding of the highest things to our lives lived in community with others. Whether our “theotropic” impulses derive from in-built endowment, evolutionary adaptation, or some other source, the secular order ought not to inhibit their expression.

If believers sense a general willingness to acknowledge their legitimate role in public life, they will likely feel a stronger and deeper loyalty to the American experiment. But if they encounter instead a rigid insistence upon a rigorously secularist public square, the result could very well alienate religious subcultures, whose sectarian disaffection could become so profound as to threaten the very cohesion of the nation. Secularists who worry about religion taking an outsized role in public life would be better advised to give a little strategic ground on that issue, and acknowledge the spiritual dimension in our makeup, even if they think it an all-too-human shortcoming.